


a fool's devotion (my belief is gone)

by orphan_account



Series: hymns [5]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bill Cipher Being Bill Cipher, M/M, Set after the scene where Stanford confronts Bill about his intentions with the portal, Torture, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of <i>course</i> Bill is a demon, because in the storybooks that is how it goes. All the better to<br/>                   <br/>E              A             T </p><p>you with, my dear.</p><p>The girl and the big, bad wolf.</p><p>The scientist who loved and loved and loved and loved and worked and devoted and devoted and devoted, and the big, bad wolf-demon who looked him in the eye and said: <i> <strong>DO YOU REALLY THINK SOMEONE COULD EVER LOVE YOU? </strong></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	a fool's devotion (my belief is gone)

Foolish, foolish. _F_ _oolish foolish foolish foolish foolish foolish._

 

(Stanford is  **foolish foolish foolish** fool·ish fo͞oliSH  **for thinking that someone could ever love him, foolish for thinking that he is _worthy_ of something, for thinking that -**)

 

It starts like this: sometimes Stanford thinks about love, like maybe back in the old days they cut open bodies and studied them and pulled the hearts out of the living and stitched, stitched, stitched them up and called the resulting disfigurement something like  _love_ or  _eros,_ like maybe back in the old days they thought of love as some kind of madness, something to avoid, like maybe back in the old days they called love a vulnerability, similar to someone with an open wound, someone who is  _begging begging begging begging begging begging_ for death, for a mercy kill, like maybe love is a mercy kill, like maybe love is putting your fingers into flesh and pulling back skin and looking at pink and white and saying:  _I love every inch of this._

 

(  **\- something as great and holyholyholy as a muse could ever** _ever_ want to be with him. Of  _course_ Bill is a demon, because in the storybooks that is how it goes. All the better to 

**E A T**  


**you with, my dear.**  


**The girl and the big, bad wolf.**

 

**The scientist who loved and loved and loved and loved and worked and devoted and devoted and devoted, and the big, bad wolf-demon who looked him in the eye and said: _DO YOU REALLY THINK SOMEONE COULD EVER LOVE YOU? YOUR OWN BROTHER IS GONE BECAUSE OF -_**

 

you.) _  
_

 

 

 

Sometimes Stanford thinks about: foolishness.

 

Most of the time, Stanford thinks about:  _life,_ thinks about the lives that other people are living in which they are untouched and at peace and they don't know about the  _bad_ in this world and the realms next to this world, because Bill is the  _bad,_ Bill Cipher is bad, and maybe this is all a bad (there it is again, that word,  _bad_ ) dream and he will wake up soon and the clock will read midnight and he will laugh at the thought of Bill Cipher being anything but holy.  


 

He thinks about the life that he could have had if he hadn't gotten himself wrapped up in the web of Gravity Falls. He thinks that maybe he could have had a wife or husband and three children, all girls, with bows in their hair and smiles on their faces. He thinks that maybe he would cook dinner for them every night, and they would all sit around the table and confess everything that they are thankful for, because in a life like that you  _have_ to be grateful. 

 

 _So_ Stanford thinks about something other than  _oh God why would he do this he has been lying to me he lied to me he is bad he is bad he is bad he is bad he is bad he is a L I A R I have to stop him I have to stop him this is no time for heartbreak I have to stop him I have to stop him I have to._ _So_ Stanford thinks. Maybe that's it. The thinking. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe thinking leads to feeling and feeling leads to heartbreak and  _I loved him like vulnerability_ and  _I loved him like vulnerability_ is something that oh  _no,_ we cannot have. Stanford has to fix this problem.

 

He can't move, though. To fix a problem, you have to be able to move. To fix a problem, you have to be  _strong ----_ you can't be on the ground with tears in your eyes and blood on your knuckles from something-Stanford-doesn't-even-remember-how-did-that-get-there-oh- _no._ He probably punched the wall, he thinks. Probably. 

 

To fix a problem, you have to be a warrior. Stanford is not a warrior. He has no armor, or defense, or weapons. He only has his mind.  _Weak._

 

_**DO YOU REALLY THINK SOMEONE COULD EVER LOVE YOU?** _

 

_Weak, weak. Weak weak weak weak. Foolish. Weakfoolishbroken  w            e               a          k and do you really think someone could ever love you? Do you really think that someone could ever love you? You don't care about anyone but yourself. You only care about knowledge. Weak, weak, weak._

 

Bill was right. 

 

He is weak.

 

He can't be weak anymore. He has to become: a warrior. Something with armor and defense and weapons, and no mind.

 

* * *

 

 

He's sleeping, when it happens. He finally gets to sleep after days of worry, sorrow, mourning, and then: he wakes up, but doesn't. He wakes up in his own mind, bound and tied up and looking rather  _weak,_ weak in the way that Bill used to make him weak, the same weakness that would envelop him when Bill would ----

 

**"LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE UP. DID YOU MISS ME? I K҉̰̯̣̲͉̘̫N͘O̰͍̦̪Ẃ YOU MISSED ME." _  
_**

 

"Give me back my body," is all that (a weak) Stanford (who should be breaking the ties, who should be trying to get himself out, they put him inside of a box and he finds a way, finds a way, finds a way,  _always_ ) manages to get out. He coughs a low, deep cough, and blood comes up from his throat and falls onto the floorground of whatever is inside his mind. He has been here so, so,  _so_ many times but he never focused on the interior of his mind, only on Bill. What a mistake. Laughable. Stupid.

 

 **"BUT WHAT'S THE FUN IN THAT?"** Bill cackles, and Stanford (is weak) (is afraid) (is like a child and innocent and scared and -) shivers.  **"I'M NOT GIVING IT BACK SO EASILY."**

 

"What do you want me to do?" Stanford asks, through the blood. There's nothing left to do but give in. He will play along with Bill's little games, because he  _has_ to, because Bill knows that Stanford always gives in so  _easily,_ so  _beautifully,_ so ----

 

**"I WANT YOU TO _FEEL._ "**

 

"What -" 

 

His words are cut off with 

 

 **painpainpain,** _and_ blood starts to spill from his wrists  _and_ it's staining his clothes

      (not really because this  _isn't real, but:_

_this isn't real, but:_

_isn't real_

_isn't_

_)_

_and_   **oh _  
_**

the blood is like a body of water, now. Something unexplored, something to get lost in. 

Something to

**DROWN**

in.

But:

 

He is strong. Warrior-like. Problems need fixing. Problems will continue being problems until they are 

 

burnt down like houses. Houses that have families in them. Houses that  _could_ have families in them, houses that  _could_ have been a home to Stanford and his family out there in some other universe where there is no Bill Cipher, but. Arson. Everything ends. Families die. Families are sent far, far, far away with a bag and families are told not to come back until they have money, until they are  _worth_ something. Families ruin dreams of college and success. Families ----

 

In the ribs, this time. Painpainpain. He can feel his ribs breaking into small small  _small_ pieces, 

pieces that can be torn out and put back together to form a picture of a man who

loved a little bit too foolishly. Maybe back in the

old days, they would take bodies and

cut them open and

cut them open and

cut them open and

study them,  _like_

what causes  _love_ ,  _like_

what causes madness,  _like_

the two are the same thing, and they aren't, but ----

 

**"YOU'RE VERSATILE, I ALWAYS LIKED THAT ABOUT YOU. NOW LET'S KICK IT UP A NOTCH, SHALL WE?"**

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stanford survives, always. He is  _versatile._ He gets his body back, at some point, during the pain and darkness and the blood in his throatandchest. But. When he is in control again, the pain doesn't stop. He should go to a hospital, probably. He should get stitched up like the bodies-without-hearts-from-the-old-days got stitched up (if they were lucky. Stanford thinks that maybe sometimes they wouldn't get stitched up.)

 

He looks in the mirror at his brokenandbruised body. He knows what he has to do to keep Bill from coming back and torturing him again and again and again and again.

 

He can't get his hands on a scalpel, so he uses a knife to cut his skin open. It hurts, but the pain is dull - he can thank Bill for this, for making him numb, for making self surgery feel painless. Then,  _then,_ comes the bone saw. It is too late, now, to go back.

 

It is too late, now, to go back, and maybe this time, the ending will be a little bit different.

 

Maybe. Maybe this time, or the next time or the next life, the big, bad wolf will be no more. The big, bad wolf, reduced to something that can be laughed at instead of feared.

 

Stanford still can't hurt Bill, can't bring himself to  _think_ about harming the love of his life, or the being who was  _supposed_ to be the love of his life. It still hurts, more than any physical torture that Bill could inflict on him.

 

In time, however, he knows he'll get over it. In time, he will be able to stop Bill. In time, everything will work out. In time, maybe the story about wolves will have a different ending.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> "A boyish notion of false emotion  
> These words are spoken despite my love  
> A fool's devotion was set in motion  
> My eyes are open now
> 
> My belief is gone  
> My belief is gone" - Looking Glass / The Birthday Massacre
> 
> I really do not understand exactly why I wrote this, but it's here.


End file.
